Representatives from the Water Power Technologies Office's (WPTO) Marine Energy program attended and participated in several panels during the Pacific Ocean Energy Trust's 13th annual Ocean Renewable Energy Conference (OREC) in Portland, Oregon. From September 18–19, staff from the Energy Department (DOE) were joined by leaders from academia, federal and state government, utilities, supply chains, and investors to discuss the latest developments in both the marine energy and offshore wind (OSW) industries and to strategize on how to most effectively accelerate project development.

The latest addition of OREC included a new focus on both maritime markets as well as the Blue Economy—defined by the World Bank as "the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods and jobs, and ocean ecosystem health." Several panels focused on both grid and non-grid scale applications, and how marine energy's roles are evolving within the context of the Blue Economy. Read below for further details:

Powering the Blue Economy

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory's (PNNL) Simon Geerlofs and WPTO's marine energy program manager Tim Ramsey discussed the role of marine energy in the burgeoning Blue Economy. Mr. Geerlofs facilitated a discussion that considered the potential for marine energy to provide power to a number of different industries and applications within the Blue Economy, such as desalination of seawater and ocean sensors and observations. Craig McLean, Acting Chief Scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmosphere Administration (NOAA), also on Mr. Geerlofs' panel, emphasized the economic value that marine energy can provide to other marine industries, as well as NOAA's openness to partnerships. Sandra Whitehouse, Senior Policy Advisor to the Ocean Conservancy, discussed how ocean-focused incubators, such as AltaSea, can help establish ecosystems that tie business, science, and educational efforts together for the benefit of a diverse group of industries within the Blue Economy. Mr. Ramsey also discussed the value of developing cross-cutting partnerships across government, industry, nonprofits, and academia, and emphasized DOE's support for competitive R&D opportunities for distributed marine energy technologies targeting maritime markets.

Maritime Markets Deep-Dive: Hydrogen

Marine energy has unique potential to serve non-grid scale maritime markets within the Blue Economy, where finding reliable sources of energy at sea is a major constraint. WPTO's Dave Hume discussed the potential for marine energy to enable hydrogen production, an area of opportunity which was explored at WPTO's maritime markets forum held back in December of 2017. As a follow-on to that event, WPTO announced a draft report on the potential opportunities for marine energy to power such markets, as well as an associated Request for Information. Gareth Davies of Aquatera was also present to discuss hydrogen's integration into the energy mix in Orkney, Scotland. While Orkney's energy is constrained as an isolated island community, hydrogen is viewed as a key opportunity for energy production, storage, and economic development. Vladimir Shepsis of Applied Ocean Energy (AOE) Corporation was also on the panel to discuss his company's off-grid generation of hydrogen from marine energy, as well as long-term plans for field tests off the coast of Washington at Grays Harbor.

Serving Maritime Markets: The Role of Test Facilities

WPTO's Steve DeWitt was joined by leaders from PacWave, Energy Department funding awardee Resolute Marine Energy, the Pacific Marine Energy Center, and the Hawaii National Marine Renewable Energy Center to discuss how international testing standards and testing facilities can play a role in the development of maritime markets. While a number of international standards committees, such as the International Electrotechnical Commission's Technical Committee 114: Marine energy – wave, tidal and other water current converters (IEC TC 114) have focused on grid scale applications, there is a need for standards development that can facilitate and guide testing in new technology development and integration for maritime market applications. Scales and environments of testing were also discussed. Testing infrastructure like the national marine renewable energy centers can be an asset to developers whether they are interested in validating marine energy device performance generally or for unique applications in maritime markets.